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Ribbon Cutting Ceremony For Chief Judge Jack Tuter Complex Trial Courtroom

Hi, everyone. I really want to thank you all for coming out in the dismal weather to be here with us today. If the worst that happens after you’ve been a judge for a bunch of years, a politician describes you as an all-around good guy, it’s probably a major mark. Because the job tends to say that you’re a genius half of the time and you’re incompetent the other half of the time.

There are a lot of people in the room. I can’t name all of you, who helped me get to where I’m at here today. Dorian said one thing that I think most of my colleagues know, I do not like to talk about myself in public forums. It’s not why I became chief judge. It’s not why I became a judge, so today I’ve kind of stretched to say a little bit about that. I came here after I got a law license in 1983, in a 1979 Honda Prelude. I didn’t know a single person in the state of Florida. I didn’t know one single person. I rented a hotel somewhere over there on the federal highway and went to the law library and started interviewing for jobs. I was lucky enough to have two or three great jobs in my career, all of which helped me prepare to be a judge. But there are so many people in this room who helped me. Bill Scherer is one of them. Bill is one of those lawyers that when he tells you he’s going to do something, he doesn’t shy away from issues. I don’t think I’d be standing here without Bill, and it’s easy to say his longtime friendship with Jeb Bush that didn’t hurt any, at all.